Recording studios are usually composed of several different rooms, each which provide a distinct purpose. These rooms include the “studio” itself, where artists can perform, play instruments, and create sound recordings such as music and voice-overs. They also include a control room where computer workstations, monitors, synthesizers and mixing consoles are kept to manipulate the recorded sound. Most recording studios also have larger “live rooms” or machine rooms, to house larger instruments, bands and possibly even whole orchestras. However, a smaller recording room, often referred to as a vocal booth, is required to keep vocals separate from the rest of the instrumentation.
The vocal booth, sometimes referred to as an isolation booth or isolation box, is small and can usually only fit one or two people in order to provide the best acoustics for individual artists and performers. The rooms are typically adjustably configured to make use of the principles of sound absorption and reflection, which may include changing the shape or material of the walls, windows, floors and ceilings depending on the individual need. A lesser amount of reflection from the walls makes for a better isolation booth because reverb and echoing can pollute the audio quality. The booths are also sound proofed in order to keep out external noises.
Due to the small size, acoustical requirements and sound proofing, it is often very difficult for a sound engineer in a control room to communicate with a musician or vocalist in an isolation booth. Until now, the only solution to this problem has been to hold up signs to windows and sometimes use earpieces. This can not only be distracting to the artist, but also be costly in terms of the number of cuts, takes, edits and the amount of time spent in the studio. The window to the control room also creates a large amount of sound reflection, which can be eliminated by the use of the present disclosure.
The present disclosure overcomes all of these problems in the musical recording industry by introducing an input and output means of communication for an artist within the isolation booth.